Northwestern University will pay $75 million to the federal government over the next three years to end an antisemitism investigation by the Trump administration and restore hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen funds.
The agreement was announced Friday night by the university and the Trump administration, which froze $790 million in federal funds for Northwestern in April, accusing the school of fostering antisemitism on campus.
“Today’s settlement marks another victory in the Trump Administration’s fight to ensure that American educational institutions protect Jewish students and put merit first,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “Institutions that accept federal funds are obligated to follow civil rights law — we are grateful to Northwestern for negotiating this historic deal.”
The university said it expects to have all of the federal funding that was frozen fully restored within 30 days as part of the settlement.
In addition to the $75 million payment to the federal government, Northwestern also agreed to review its international admissions and develop training for international students to learn the “norms of the campus,” and reaffirm steps to protect Jewish members of the community.
In a statement, Northwestern Interim President Henry Bienen defended the settlement agreement, noting it fought to keep full control over hiring, admissions, and curriculum as part of the deal.
“As an imperative to the negotiation of this agreement, we had several hard red lines we refused to cross: We would not relinquish any control over whom we hire, whom we admit as students, what our faculty teach or how our faculty teach. I would not have signed this agreement without provisions ensuring that is the case,” Bienen wrote. “Northwestern runs Northwestern. Period.”
In August, a group of Northwestern faculty wrote an open letter to school leadership, asking them not to make a deal with the Trump administration in order to restore the frozen federal funding.
“Acquiescence to the administration’s tactics would make Northwestern complicit in an assault on higher education, which is an essential bulwark of civil society. The administration is skirting legal processes and demanding what amounts to ransom from universities; such actions continue its well-documented and dangerous abuse of executive power,” they wrote.
Since the federal funding freeze, Northwestern has announced a hiring freeze, cutbacks, layoffs and program and benefits changes to cope with its budget shortfall. Former Northwestern University President Michael Schill resigned in September amid the fallout from the funding freeze and antisemitism investigation.
Several other major universities also have reached deals with the Trump administration in recent months to settle claims of antisemitism and other discrimination on campus.
Columbia University in New York agreed to a $200 million settlement in July, to be paid out over three years to resolve investigations into alleged violations of anti-discrimination laws. Columbia also agreed to an additional $21 million to settle investigations from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Cornell University in New York agreed earlier this month to pay $30 million to the federal government to put an end to an investigation into claims of antisemitic harassment and discrimination amid campus protests over the war in Gaza. Cornell also agreed to invest $30 million in U.S. agriculture research.
Brown University also cut a deal with the Trump administration to restore grant funding in exchange for commitments on women’s sports, antisemitism, admissions practices and a donation of $50 million to workforce development programs.
The University of Pennsylvania also recently reached a deal with the Trump administration over their policy on transgender athletes in women’s sports.
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